A Unique Look At The Pittsburgh Pirates

Results tagged ‘ Steve Cooke ’

With the news of Gerrit Cole being sent down today I’ve got to thinking about how good (or to be more accurate bad) the Pirates “ace” has been over the course of the 20 year losing streak. The first step to do this was to go about picking the Pirates ace from each season. I did this in a subjective way factoring in a bunch of different stats but one thing I did set as a constant was a minimum of 150 IP in a give year (this was adjusted down some for the shortened 1994 season to 120 IP). You can see the results below. Also to give an idea of how baseball as a whole pitched that year I have listed the pitcher’s ranking in terms of FIP and WAR (min 150 IP, 120 in 1994).

1993: Steve Cooke

Stats: 210.2 IP, 3.89 ERA, 3.98 FIP, 3.3 WAR

Rankings: 38th (WAR), 41st (FIP)

1994: Denny Neagle

Stats: 137.0 IP, 5.12 ERA, 4.20 FIP, 2.0 WAR

Rankings: 47th (WAR), 35th (FIP)

1995: Denny Neagle

Stats: 209.2 IP, 3.43 ERA, 3.60 FIP, 4.6 WAR

Rankings: 11th (WAR), 12th (FIP)

1996: Denny Neagle

Stats: 182.2 IP, 3.05 ERA, 3.84 FIP, 3.6 WAR *based on only his time with the Pirates

Rankings: 32nd (WAR), 20th (FIP) *based on only his time with the Pirates

1997: Francisco Cordova

Stats: 178.2 IP, 3.63 ERA, 3.75 FIP, 3.5 WAR

Rankings: 30th (WAR), 23rd (FIP)

1998: Francisco Cordova

Stats: 220.1 IP, 3.31 ERA, 3.99 FIP, 3.6 WAR

Rankings: 32nd (WAR), 33rd (FIP)

1999: Kris Benson

Stats: 196.2 IP, 4.07 ERA, 4.14 FIP, 3.7 WAR

Rankings: 27th (WAR), 22nd (FIP)

2000: Kris Benson

Stats: 217.2 IP, 3.85 ERA, 4.20 FIP, 4.0 WAR

Rankings: 24th (WAR), 24th (FIP)

2001: Todd Ritchie

Stats: 207.1 IP, 4.47 ERA, 4.15 FIP, 3.2 WAR

Rankings: 35th (WAR), 36th (FIP)

2002: Kip Wells

Stats: 198.1 IP, 3.58 ERA, 4.17 FIP, 2.5 WAR

Rankings: 56th (WAR), 46th (FIP)

2003: Kip Wells

Stats: 197.1 IP, 3.28 ERA, 4.38 FIP, 2.4 WAR

Rankings: 61st (WAR), 60th (FIP)

2004: Oliver Perez

Stats: 196.0 IP, 2.98 ERA, 3.45 FIP, 4.5 WAR

Rankings: 17th (WAR), 11th (FIP)

2005: Mark Redman

Stats: 178.1 IP, 4.90 ERA, 4.18 FIP, 2.2 WAR

Rankings: 69th (WAR), 52nd (FIP)

2006: Zach Duke

Stats: 215.1 IP, 4.47 ERA, 4.13 FIP, 3.3 WAR

Rankings: 42nd (WAR), 31st (FIP)

2007: Ian Snell

Stats: 208.0 IP, 3.76 ERA, 4.01 FIP, 3.5 WAR

Rankings: 35th (WAR), 32nd (FIP)

2008: Paul Maholm

Stats: 206.1 IP, 3.71 ERA, 4.15 FIP, 2.8 WAR

Rankings: 48th (WAR), 49th (FIP)

2009: Paul Maholm

Stats: 194.2 IP, 4.44 ERA, 3.83 FIP, 3.2 WAR

Rankings: 43rd (WAR), 32nd (FIP)

2010: Paul Maholm

Stats: 185.1 IP, 5.10 ERA, 4.18 FIP, 1.9 WAR

Rankings: 80th (WAR), 70th (FIP)

2011: Charlie Morton

Stats: 171.2 IP, 3.83 ERA, 3.77 FIP, 2.1 WAR

Rankings: 70th (WAR), 48th (WAR)

2012: AJ Burnett

Stats: 202.1 IP, 3.51 ERA, 3.52 FIP, 3.4 WAR

Rankings: 29th (WAR), 27th (FIP)

The numbers above pain a pretty gruesome picture. Only twice in the last twenty years did the Pirates have a pitcher rank in the top 20 of the league in both FIP and WAR. A lot of years the Pirates struggled to even get a player to crack the top 50 in both categories. AJ Burnett helped dramatically improve the Pirates standing last year by posting the best season from a Pirates starter since 2004 but even so the Pirates have a lot of room to go to catch up to the rest of the league. The Pirates will not be able to close that gap through external means so there only hope of doing so in the next two or three years lies squarely on the arms of Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon. Yes it has been a little disappointing to see them both sent down this spring but both of them still need a little fine tuning before they are set loose. If things go right the Pirates in 2014 or 2015 could have two ace caliber seasons from Cole and Taillon matching their total from the last twenty years combined. There is a light at the end of the tunnel Pirates fans.

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